Broken Fortress: The Rifter Book Six

The Story So Far:

When he was ordained as the Kahlil of the Payshmura Church, Ushiri Ravishan left behind his name and home. In the foreign world of Nayeshi, he watched over the destroyer incarnation of the god Parfir, though the young man—John Toffler—had no idea of his own deadly potential.

Only once in ten years does Kahlil desert his duty. One night he returns to Basawar to rescue his sister, Rousma, from the burning convent of Umbhra’ibaye. After a deadly battle against the witch Ji Shir’korud, he returns with his sister only to discover that John and two of his friends have intercepted a message meant for the Kahlil alone: the golden key that unlocks the Rifter’s death. Unwittingly, John and his friends have used the key and traveled to Kahlil’s home world of Basawar.

Though the Great Gate is damaged, Kahlil attempts to follow John in order to stop him from unleashing apocalyptic ruin on his home. However, the passage back to Basawar leaves Kahlil badly injured and deeply changed. When he arrives he no longer possesses the Prayerscars that marked him as Kahlil, nor does he bear the ugly red scar that once disfigured his face. But most jarringly, his memories of his world’s history and his own past are now all wrong. The Payshmura church had been utterly destroyed and the Fai’daum revolutionaries now rule most of the northlands.

Fortunately, Kahlil is taken in by Alidas, a captain of the Bousim rashan’im in the vibrant city of Nurjima. There, Kahlil spends two years as Alidas’ secret weapon—an assassin who can walk through walls and kill with just a touch of his hand. Though Kahlil is plagued by uneasy memories, he takes comfort in his work and the certainty of his future.

But a final assignment from Alidas changes everything.  Kahlil is deployed to stop an assassination against the leader of the Fai’daum—a powerful sorcerer called Jath’ibaye. While posing as a messenger in the house of the ambitious and seductive Ourath Lisam, Kahlil not only discovers that several of the ruling class of gaun’im are involved in the plot but that they are conspiring with a man Kahlil remembers from his shattered past—his nemesis, Fikiri. At the same time he realizes that Jath’ibaye is John—the Rifter. Unlike Kahlil, who was thrown forward in Basawar’s history, John fell into the past and has altered the world’s history as well as events in Kahlil’s early life.

After accepting that he cannot change the past, Kahlil decides to do what he feels is the right thing and stop the assassination attempt against Jath’ibaye. In doing so, he kills the Bousim heir, Nanvess, and is mortally wounded. Still, he manages to wrest the mystic yasi’halaun from Fikiri’s grasp before collapsing to die alone in the silent, colorless cold of the Gray Space.

Jath’ibaye, however, has plans for him. Ripping Kahlil from the Gray Space, he bears the wound inflicted by the yasi’halaun—feeding the blade, but also saving Kahlil’s life. Now Kahlil finds himself sailing north with Jath’ibaye while the gaun’im react to the scene of bloodshed and bodies the two have left behind them.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Kahlil watched the dark waters of the vast Samsira River twist and break beneath the bow of Jath’ibaye’s sleek clipper. Normally the river flowed from the north to the south and its current should have carried the ship back towards Nurjima, not away. Yet the waters directly beneath them surged in the opposite direction. Confused fish darted between the two currents.

Overhead the single mast stood bare. Kahlil doubted that the wind rushing over the river would have aided any sailing ship. He felt it twisting and spiraling as it brushed through his loose dark hair. If the sail had been up the wind would have spun the boat like a toy top. All along the shore, fishermen glanced up from their nets and then stared as the ship raced past them. Some held up their hands as if receiving blessings.

Three days before, when they had sailed past the city of Shaye’hahlir, the fishermen and sailors had averted their eyes or placed their palms against their mouths to ward off curses. Now, in the north, groups of children and women rushed to the river’s edge and sprinkled themselves with water. Some even knelt in supplication as Jath’ibaye’s clipper swept by.

Both the people of the north and the south seemed to recognize the extraordinary nature of Jath’ibaye’s mere presence. But whether he was a harbinger of destruction or a force of salvation seemed to be a matter of geography.

Either way, they were right to recognize his power, though the form it took surprised even Kahlil.

He studied the swirling eddies foaming up in the wake of the clipper and pondered the subtle control required to reverse a single current of this huge river. He wouldn’t have thought the Rifter capable of something so precise. The holy books had only spoken of him burning seas to vapor, rending open mountains, and destroying kingdoms. The Rifter’s power was always synonymous with divine judgment and destruction. Yet here Jath’ibaye was proving himself capable of so much more.

Kahlil brushed a fine spray of river water from his cheeks. Honestly, he didn’t know what to make of the man John had become during his time in Basawar. He looked so similar that, at a glance, Kahlil could imagine him to be the same young ecology student he’d roomed with. Yet hearing him speak in flawless Basawar and seeing him command his people, Kahlil suspected that much had changed since John had become Jath’ibaye’in’Vundomu.

Though, he could only guess just how much the man had altered over the years because so far he’d seen surprisingly little of Jath’ibaye. And considering the ship’s small size, Kahlil found that a little suspicious. Only a dozen ship hands manned the clipper, and yet Jath’ibaye always managed to disappear among them. Kahlil tried not to feel slighted. Jath’ibaye had reason to be annoyed with him.

He knew all too well what part Kahlil had played in the collapse of relations between the Fai’daum and the gaun’im lords. Though Kahlil himself had only discovered the extent of the trouble last night.

He’d woken from restless dreams to the sounds of odd, tinny voices in the adjacent cabin. After listening for a little while, he had recognized the buzz of witches’ stones as they transmitted their creators’ messages in tones reminiscent of old radio dramas. Words had skipped and fizzed, cutting out for instants, but the stones had steadily relayed reports from Jath’ibaye’s agents.

Looters had assaulted the glass palace, forcing the evacuation of all Fai’daum from Nurjima. Kahlil’s stomach had twisted when he’d caught the names of gaunsho’im and the numbers of armed men they commanded. Armies were mustering. With Nanvess’ death, the Bousim house was in an uproar. Already warships mobilized for the journey to Vundomu.

Kahlil gazed back down at the spinning, swirling fish and felt something of their haplessness.

Just two days after being well enough to rise from his bunk, he’d already grown restless. He had been trained for conflict, for stealth and battle. Even when he had worked as a runner in the Lisam household, there had been a greater purpose for him. Now he had nothing. No orders, no duty, no mission. He was utterly free and it did not suit him.

Kahlil didn’t hear anyone approach. He only noticed the shadow that fell across him. He turned back from his study of the water and distant shore. Jath’ibaye stood only a few feet behind him. His hair had been tied back from his face, but a wild curl already worked free. His rust-colored coat hung open and the shirt beneath appeared unusually crisp and white. He almost seemed dressed up.

Or maybe he just looked healthy. The effect of Fikiri’s poison was clearly fading. Over the last few days Jath’ibaye’s pallid complexion had returned to its natural golden tan. The deep shadows beneath his eyes had lifted. The wounds around Jath’ibaye’s throat had healed to a few faint pink marks. Kahlil doubted that there was much left of the bullet wound in his chest either.

I’m sorry if I’m interrupting. Jath’ibaye’s low voice just carried over the noise of rushing water.

Kahlil shrugged. I wasn’t doing anything important.

You looked happy.

Did I? I was just thinking about the water. Kahlil glanced back down at the contrary current. It’s you, isn’t it?

Me? Jath’ibaye stepped closer and followed Kahlil’s gaze down to the churning surface of the river.

Creating the northward current, Kahlil clarified.

I felt it would be wise to put a good distance between us and Nurjima as quickly as possible, Jath’ibaye said.

A somewhat evasive answer, but Kahlil let it go. Certain characteristics of John’s obviously remained the same even after all this time. Kahlil wondered if it was possible to find secretiveness charming. Perhaps it was simply nostalgia.

A speckled turtle plunged out from the current beside the ship and snapped up an unsuspecting fish. A moment later the turtle dived back into the wake of the ship.

So, is the truce at an end? Kahlil asked.

Truce? Jath’ibaye frowned for just a moment. You mean between the gaunsho’im and me?

You had others? Kahlil asked.

I thought you might have meant the truce between you and me. Jath’ibaye’s gaze lingered on him, then shifted to something in the water. Kahlil tried to see what had merited such a concerned expression, but all he made out were the waves.

There’s no need for a truce between us, Kahlil said. I never thought of you as my enemy. Not even in Nayeshi. I just had a duty to do. But that’s all over now. It’s been over for decades, hasn’t it?

Jath’ibaye nodded. Kahlil gazed north to the sharp ridge of mountains ahead of them. He didn’t remember the mountains surrounding Vundomu looking like that. They were steeper and more jagged. Had they changed during the cataclysm that had destroyed Rathal’pesha? Or had they, like the river current, been altered through careful control?

He stole a quick glance to Jath’ibaye. He seemed so human. And yet the rushing water beneath them and the jutting mountains ahead of them were all testaments to his divine nature.

You can’t have been in Basawar that long. I would have known… Jath’ibaye’s expression remained firm, almost stern, but there was something like concern in his tone.

What? Kahlil asked. Then he remembered his own mention of the two decades that had passed. No, just two years. When I followed you from Nayeshi, I skipped years ahead. I couldn’t control the Great Gate so I just had to focus on the bond I have to you. It pulled me through to Nurjima two years ago.

I wonder why there and not Vundomu? Jath’ibaye asked.

You must have been in Nurjima when I came through, Kahlil said. It would have been close to the time for the Gaunsho’im Council’s opening sessions. If you’d been upset or angry, I probably would have been drawn to the strong emotion.

Jath’ibaye nodded. Kahlil didn’t know if the gesture meant that he had, indeed, been upset then or if Jath’ibaye was simply acknowledging that his physical location had been accurate.

Then you’ve only been home a little while. Jath’ibaye didn’t look at Kahlil. Instead his blue eyes were narrowed, watching the waters below them. A great deal must have changed since you left.

More than I can know, most likely, Kahlil replied, but he wasn’t about to let Jath’ibaye pull him into a reverie of days gone by. The world of his past was long dead. What about you? How long have you lived here now?

Longer, Jath’ibaye answered, as if that was all there could be to say on the subject.

Much longer? Three weeks? Or more like a hundred years? Kahlil raised his brows and for just a moment he caught the hint of a teasing smile on Jath’ibaye’s lips.

Somewhere between the two.

You must have been here for at least twenty-seven years now, Kahlil informed him. But I think longer than that, because you were already established in the Fai’daum by then.

Jath’ibaye gave a nod, though the playfulness had fled his expression.

Thirty-one years, Jath’ibaye said. His tone did not imply that they had been kind years.

That’s more time than I’ve spent in Basawar in all my life, Kahlil commented. I think you must be more of a native now than I am.

Kahlil wanted to ask Jath’ibaye about his arrival here and the destruction of Rathal’pesha. But he felt afraid of what Jath’ibaye might tell him. There was no way that it could be a pleasant reminiscence. He knew what it took to awaken a Rifter. Jath’ibaye had to have endured terrible pain.

You still haven’t answered my question about whether the peace treaty with the gaunsho’im is broken. Kahlil decided that the future was probably a better subject than the past.

No, I haven’t, Jath’ibaye replied.

Kahlil waited, but Jath’ibaye said nothing more. Wringing conversations out of him had never been easy, even on Nayeshi. Life in Basawar seemed to have made Jath’ibaye into an unassailable fortress of noncommittal silence. Kahlil frowned at him and Jath’ibaye gave a slight laugh.

What? Kahlil demanded.

You just look so obviously annoyed. Again, his playful smile faded. You reminded me of someone else, that’s all.

Oh.

I can’t answer your question because I don’t know yet if our truce is broken or still salvageable. The gaun’im will have to decide that.

Kahlil leaned against the side of the ship. The sky above them was a washed-out blue. Faint, streaky clouds rolled slowly past.

I’m not good at this, Kahlil said at last. He glanced back to Jath’ibaye. His eyes seemed a brilliant blue, so much brighter than the sky. I’m no good at standing around doing nothing.

If you’d rather be alone… Jath’ibaye began to move away, but Kahlil caught him by the arm. Jath’ibaye’s muscles were as tense as iron cords. Kahlil released him immediately, wondering what reflex could have inspired such a presumptuous action. Even in Nayeshi, he’d never been physically free with John. He had never dared to allow himself that. The only time they’d ever touched was to shake hands once upon meeting.

I didn’t mean you should go, Kahlil said. I’m thinking more generally of my life. I need some purpose to serve.

Such as?

Kahlil straightened. I was hoping you would tell me.

Me? Jath’ibaye gazed at Kahlil.

Why not? I have skills. I’m well trained. You have enemies. If there’s going to be a war, you could use a man like me.

If there is going to be a war, then yes, you would make an invaluable weapon, Jath’ibaye said. But are you sure that you want to be a weapon?

What else would I do? I am your Kahlil and so long as I am bound to you, you might as well use me.

You have other options, Jath’ibaye replied. "The